AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE
ACTUAL TEST QUESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS
COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW PACKAGE
●● You have learned that if you want to combine a noun such as girl
with a verb such as run, the noun precedes the verb, and you must add an
s to form girl runs. The rules that govern this kind of procedure are
known as
Answer: syntax.
●● A key point in Noam Chomsky's approach to psycholinguistics is an
emphasis on
Answer: how humans have language skills that are inborn.
●● According to Chomsky's approach to language,
Answer: ambiguity arises when a surface structure has two different
deep structures.
●● According to the cognitive-functional approach to language
Answer: the purpose of language is to convey meaning to other people.
●● The cognitive-functional approach to language emphasizes that
, Answer: speakers typically use language skillfully, which helps listeners
to pay attention to the most important part of a message.
●● According to the research on understanding sentences
Answer: when a sentence has several negative terms, people's
understanding of the sentence is only slightly better than guessing or
chance level.
●● Which of the following statements about the passive voice is correct?
Answer: People understand a sentence more quickly if the sentence is
active, rather than passive.
●● Consider the following sentence: "Chris, who is a college
sophomore, has decided to declare a psychology major." This sentence is
an example of
Answer: a nested structure.
●● Why is a sentence with a nested structure more difficult for readers
to understand, compared to a sentence without a nested structure?
Answer: Sentences with a nested structure require readers to store the
first part of the sentence until they have processed later parts of the
sentence.
ACTUAL TEST QUESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS
COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW PACKAGE
●● You have learned that if you want to combine a noun such as girl
with a verb such as run, the noun precedes the verb, and you must add an
s to form girl runs. The rules that govern this kind of procedure are
known as
Answer: syntax.
●● A key point in Noam Chomsky's approach to psycholinguistics is an
emphasis on
Answer: how humans have language skills that are inborn.
●● According to Chomsky's approach to language,
Answer: ambiguity arises when a surface structure has two different
deep structures.
●● According to the cognitive-functional approach to language
Answer: the purpose of language is to convey meaning to other people.
●● The cognitive-functional approach to language emphasizes that
, Answer: speakers typically use language skillfully, which helps listeners
to pay attention to the most important part of a message.
●● According to the research on understanding sentences
Answer: when a sentence has several negative terms, people's
understanding of the sentence is only slightly better than guessing or
chance level.
●● Which of the following statements about the passive voice is correct?
Answer: People understand a sentence more quickly if the sentence is
active, rather than passive.
●● Consider the following sentence: "Chris, who is a college
sophomore, has decided to declare a psychology major." This sentence is
an example of
Answer: a nested structure.
●● Why is a sentence with a nested structure more difficult for readers
to understand, compared to a sentence without a nested structure?
Answer: Sentences with a nested structure require readers to store the
first part of the sentence until they have processed later parts of the
sentence.
